Yellow Fog
by quantumsilver
Summary: Post Endgame. Not everything is candy and roses.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**: They are not mine.

**Notes**: There's absolutely nothing groundbreaking here. This was started as an alternate possibility for the VAMB secret summer exchange, but I ended up going another route with that in order to be certain of finishing in time. This alternate has lingered for a while, being picked at, and I finally decided to get it off my plate to make room for bigger projects. This is not an intense story, really. Maybe even a bit spare. Just a sort of wistful post-Endgame the way I would do it. Quite possibly the only time I'll do it. Posted in the "M" category only for this first chapter, which no children should read.

Thanks to Froot for the usual constant encouragement, to Cheshire for the same and for being the best beta/sounding board ever and scrubbing at the last chapter for me. :D

_Yellow Fog_

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><p>She'd forgotten the chill of a San Francisco September. How is it possible she'd forgotten the gloomy fog? The first two years it was all she'd missed. At some point it had become about the warmth of October and the shining sun.<p>

His were not the eyes she'd expected to see clouding, or blending into the haze surrounding the park bench they share. She can't bear to watch the reflection of ghosts she isn't acknowledging in herself much less him.

Tentatively, Admiral Janeway takes the hand resting flat on the seat next to her. "Chakotay. What is it?"

"Nothing." It's lightly delivered, it's a lie, yet his hand does not withdraw from her. Not his hand.

She studies his slightly too-stiff posture, his averted gaze. He's been friendly all through lunch, just chatty enough not to send up immediate red flags. It takes someone who knows him as well as she does to see his pain. "You and Seven?" She nearly chokes on it.

His eyes uncloud only briefly to lock with hers. His smile is a hint too wide. "There is no 'me and Seven'."

She knows this, but not how he's doing with it. "Is that what's bothering you?"

A huff of laughter, the turn of his head to avert his eyes so she can't see the debriding shame in them. "No. She made the right decision. I'm the only idiot who tried to deny it. But I know that now. I have for months." He takes back his hand, rests it on his knee. His polished boots draw his attention for a time, leaving her to work out this mystery on her own.

If she hadn't spent the past two months so wrapped up in her own issues – and her hurt – she would know what's bothering him. But she had, and she doesn't. She's at a complete loss. Something's off. Yet the only thing she can see is that the four pips on his collar don't seem as significant without the sun to reflect their shine. They also don't seem right somehow under her stare. It's odd to glance at his collar and see circles instead of a striped bar. She had always thought circles would be right. Why aren't they right?

Why isn't he?

"Then what, Chakotay?" she presses. "What's wrong? Talk to me."

The last descended into _that_ tone; it was an order. Whether or not sheer habit makes him respond to it, his head turns slowly. When it does, her stomach drops past her boots and into the moist stone below. She thinks later that it's the fog that lets him show her, that in the sun he might never have dared, but as it is, she sees the naked need in his eyes. It's written all over his face.

"If only all I wanted to do to you was talk, Kathryn," he laments softly.

It's an open challenge. So much more direct than anything they've ever done. It knocks her back on her proverbial heels.

For some reason he has the courage of the condemned today. With one look, one line, he's spilled it all out onto the table: seven years of unspoken depth wrapped in "can't"s are dropped so neatly and simply into her lap.

This is not the man who hedged feelings in metaphors or legends. This is a man direct and forthright about what he wants. One who has seen what life has to offer in more than one quadrant, and one who is not satisfied to leave it all unsaid. One who seems to think he's suddenly run out of time to waste, but that's–

She physically tilts her head, an attempt to reign in her wandering thoughts. He's crazy – or she is. It must be the fog. It must be. And then she laughs. "'The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes.'" The words are out of her mouth before she consciously notes them forming.

"'Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap.'"

How odd that an awkward lunch between two estranged friends has landed them here. Her head shakes slightly in real amusement. "You were always the Eliot fan. I doubt I'd have read that poem if not for your insistence, you know."

"And you always loved your godforsaken, dry Dante." He grins at her. That dazzling, illuminating grin. "If you suffered through 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'," the grin blooms again at her grimace against the name, which he knows she hates, "it was nothing compared to what you put me through with _Inferno_. At least Love Song is a single sitting read. _Inferno_ went on for weeks."

It's an old argument, one that brings familiar warmth floating to the surface of uncomfortable tension. Somehow the teasing is exactly what was needed. Or maybe it was just his smile. The tight bands around her chest loosen. Slowly, her heart rate is returning to something resembling normal. She draws her legs under her on the hard, not-so-dry bench, slowly considering. Absorbing, and adjusting. "I'm sorry. You caught me off guard. I said the first thing that came to mind. But it wasn't the most appropriate poem to quote, under the circumstances."

He averts his eyes. The clouds gather. They reflect the fog surrounding them. "Maybe it was."

The muscles of her brows work closer together. "Chakotay?" She's losing him. That fast.

"I'm sorry." The clouds are back in his eyes, the aversion back in his gaze. "That was out of line. I just…I needed to see you today. But I should go."

Her hand moves faster than he expects, faster than he does, and her fingers close tightly over his arm, keeping him seated. "Don't. You. Dare."

He doesn't.

This isn't what they do. This isn't what they've practiced for seven years and she doesn't even know if they'll be good at it. If they can unlearn everything the last almost decade has forced them to live. But she's a scientist, and study through experimentation comes naturally to her – when it's permitted. She leans over the bench, pressing his back into the curved slats behind him. Her hand leaves his arm, frames his face. She kisses him. It's the most natural thing she thinks she's ever done.

The rest is a blur.

They manage to figure out her apartment is closest. They knock into her knickknacks, which are all over the place, even on the steps. At the top of the stairs they barely manage to ascend, in the time his mouth _has_ to be off her neck, her white shoulders and round breasts in order for him to pull his shirts off over his head, he tells her she's the worst hoarder he's ever met. As they reach the guest bedroom, the closest one to the stairs, she tells him she would say the same about him, and his art, which is a generous term for his creations, and one she'd never take from him. She tries to tell him this, until, with a smirk, he muffles the sentiment with her own shirts, which he leaves teasingly over her face for long enough to enthusiastically trap a nipple between his teeth, to torture the flat tip with his tongue.

With the time being in a public place has let them put into their building states of arousal, foreplay is short. He fits perfectly, fills her full, and this…this is all that either one of them had needed from the other. His breath is rightly hot across her cheek. His beautiful face looks so much fiercer at the height of orgasm than she has ever seen it. He floods devotion into the deepest recesses of her body, his capable hands that had worked cold hard machinery for too many years out there are strong and warm and biting into the bones of her hips as he hammers his need home to her.

She would have been content to lie there against him, the sweat on their bodies sticking their dual toned skins together, but he is not. He's not content; he's contrary, and he has her on her back, legs drawn open and thighs draped over his shoulders, his eager mouth diving in to finish what she had started back on that park bench. Or maybe what he had.

He holds her to him, his hand smoothing her hair for a time until they're both restless, aroused enough to continue. Somehow, the moment is special enough that the darkening clouds in his eyes go unnoticed by her. Or maybe she just doesn't want to see them, doesn't want to acknowledge that he is building a sustainable memory and not a future by her side.

When they are sated, he waits long moments through her breathless planning of the future. Moments in which he stares into her eyes, taking a snapshot of the image of her with hair awash on the white pillow they share. Then he rises, swiftly dresses. She stares at him, mouth agape as he says, "I'm sorry, Kathryn. I shouldn't have done that. I've always been weak where you're concerned."

"It's not a bad thing," she drawls, post-coital bliss hazing her vision.

"It is this time." This would be so much easier if she wasn't…her. He grits his teeth, sets his jaw. "This isn't going to work long term for us."

It's like he's speaking another language. She refuses to take him at his apparent meaning. There's no way he really means that. "Chakotay? What are you talking about?"

"In the Delta Quadrant it was different. Out there, I could afford to ignore the loyalties I couldn't honor, but here…" He trails off, at seeming a loss.

Alarm is slowly creeping into her bliss, encroaching on the sleepiness that had started to descend. "What loyalties are you talking about? Where is this coming from?"

He could stand here for eternity and explain it, and she would never get it. "I don't expect you to understand. This isn't where I belong. I wish to hell it was, but I can't stay here. It's better for both of us that I leave now, while we're still friends."

Kathryn is so floored by what has just occurred that she doesn't even rise or try to go after him. Not until it's far too late does she even realize that she'd never gotten out of him where he's even staying. If she wants to contact him once the shock fully wears off, to tear into him for his unthinkably crushing and enigmatic rejection, she'll have to wait until morning, when he reports for duty.

She's so shocked, so disbelieving that it never even occurs to her to cry.

When morning comes, she's done little but stare at the ceiling, her mind racing over all the possible reasons Chakotay would behave like he's under alien possession until her alarm tells her it's time to rise and prepare for work. As she yawns so hard tears do stream down her white face, she clicks on the morning news – and nearly chokes on her coffee.

A picture of Chakotay's service photo is flashing at her on the screen.

"…prison break could only have been orchestrated by someone with command level clearance. It was carefully executed. Among the missing are thirty Maquis fugitives that were captured after the Dominion War. Starfleet Security Officials aren't releasing any other information, but they have told us that this is the man who was responsible. Surveillance footage at the prison entrance clearly shows him stunning two guards with his phaser…"

She watches as, on screen, a grainy figure she knows to be Chakotay's by mannerisms alone is performing the very actions the reporter has described.

But that's insane. It's false. Of course that footage is doctored. It must be. This is absurd. Is she dreaming?

She manages to stumble to the comm. system at her desk, to collapse bonelessly into her chair, sloshing hot coffee over herself in the process of reaching to her monitor in time to answer Owen's incoming call. But it isn't until she sees his grim, ashen face, that she realizes it's true. It's all true.

He's gone. And he left her, his career, and their crew behind him.


	2. Chapter 2

She's personally reviewed the evidence. Chakotay made absolutely no attempt to hide his identity or to cover his tracks. There is no mistaking that this was him, and that he wasn't acting at someone else's behest. Upon obsessively studying the footage of the prison break, his parting words to her make crystal-sharp, clear sense in the cold light of morning. He had planned this, probably from the moment Voyager had reached dry dock. It was too concise, too perfect not to have taken months to research. He had known what he was going to do well ahead of time. Yet he'd never betrayed a hint of it until that night.

The night that she had been too wrapped up in what they were doing to stop and listen to what he really said to her – until it was too late.

Admiral Paris stands in her office, and she tunes numbly back into his words. "You understand that he has to be brought into custody when we find him. There's no other option here."

"Of course," she murmurs, aware of Owen's piercing scrutiny. Of course he must.

"He'll be tried immediately, and if he's found guilty, he'll be incarcerated. For now, we've stripped him of his rank. He's no longer a member of Starfleet. I don't see him earning his commission back this time."

She nods perfunctorily, automatically. It has to be done.

"One betrayal can be overlooked," Owen allows. "But not two."

His words strike a chord in her somewhere, but she isn't sure exactly why. The sense of betrayal, anger, disbelief…it's all too much to process. She's numb. "I understand," she says stonily.

The fallout is greater than she ever expected. Those first few days of chaos surrounding the breach of the most secure facility on Earth, Janeway only keeps her job by Admiral Paris's loyalty to her; he takes her at her word and convinces the other admirals to be ashamed that they were baying for her pips. They'd insisted that she must have known of Chakotay's intent, and especially once she was forced to admit that he'd gone to that prison directly from his former captain's home, but Owen smoothed that over, too. She's kept her position. Because she's such a loyal Starfleet officer, and because Chakotay was one of her own, one she'd vouched for, she is the one to head the commission on his capture.

He's too smart for that. By the time the prison guards' relief shift had come to discover the breakout, Chakotay and his escapees were well out of the system. He'd confiscated three shuttles from Voyager using his clearance as her new captain – one of them being the Delta Flyer, they'd learned later on that morning. The additional theft of one of the most highly advanced shuttles in the quadrant had whipped the braying brass into an additional frenzy of urgency.

To the other admirals, it seemed inconceivable that he had pulled something like this off without help. Forced to concede the possibility, Kathryn was left with no alternative. She hauled in her former senior officers, from Seven and B'Elanna down to Harry, questioned them in front of a full fact finding committee complete with Betazoids to see which of them had aided Chakotay in his criminal actions. Next had been the higher echelon of the former Maquis. Angry as the brass remained, they had no desire to appear biased by hauling the lower ranking former criminals into the panels first. At some point during their absence, Starfleet had become even more concerned for their precious image than usual. She wonders if it was the choices they made during the Dominion War. Their obsessive concern with how they look smacks of deep-seated guilt for…something. She doesn't have time to pinpoint it.

All of her crew passed the inquisition, and she hated herself, still does for the shocked and hurt gazes she'd drawn from every one of them as she herself had come down hardest in each interrogation. Afterward they forgave her, lamented with her at how little they really knew Chakotay after all, and they are still the closest of friends. They attend births and marriages, birthdays and promotion parties, call each other weekly. All of it feels slightly empty without Chakotay there, but otherwise completely normal. Her mother and sister know each of them by face and name; their families know her the same way. It's exactly how they should be, and it's never quite right.

The stolen shuttles are recovered, each sitting dead in space – short a little dilithium but nothing more. Flight paths are deleted from the database and none are retrievable. Two of the thirty liberated Maquis are brought back into custody for being stupid enough to linger too close to the Federation border. They withstand extensive interrogation about Chakotay's whereabouts simply because, as Kathryn had tried to get the inquisition panel to see, he'd never have placed these people in the position of knowing that information to begin with. Eventually, they're forced to concede that point, and the prisoners are tried for escape and resentenced.

No one else is caught. Not that week, and not in the long months that follow. Chakotay sightings pour in, but they never come to fruition. She herself has led several missions on the more promising leads, at station bars and colonies, outposts and camps, and each time she turns up ghosts, look-alikes, or simply nothing, she returns home in deeper disgrace. The looks are hidden but discernable if she bothers to look closely enough. She doesn't anymore. Why waste the effort? She keeps her head down in between sightings, goes about her other duties.

They give her glorified desk work, probably because they still don't fully trust her. She isn't sure she trusts herself. She only knows that home isn't what she had expected it would be, and that, barring the Chakotay oddity, it's everything she had expected it would be, all at the same time. None of it is quite right.

Half the time, she has memories of Chakotay's hands on her skin, of him driving deep inside of her. They still arouse her. Many nights, she lies in bed alone, or in the steaming bath she draws for herself, and lets her hands wander down between her thighs to rub away the ache his memory causes. She falls asleep in the water, waking when it goes cold as the fog in August and September, or in bed with sweat drying on her clammy skin. She's never quite sated.

The other half of her nights, a deep and personal anger builds steadily within her. Why would he do this? How? How could he throw away everything when she had given _everything she had_ for seven years…and more? How could he do this to _her_? It's the last that burns most acutely. Those nights she gets no sleep, comes to work with dark circles cosmetics barely conceal and stifles yawns through committee meetings that have no bearing on anything that ever matters.

She goes to the holodeck, never more than once a month for an hour, to run simulations of Voyager. They're empty shadows of the way things were and it raises questions that plague her on sleepless nights. The where and how of losing her hold on Chakotay's loyalty, his character, remain elusive.

Seven comes to her office. She wears her hair up in that same modified French twist, but as Janeway makes a covert study of her, she finds again that this is where the similarities between this young woman and the one she knew on Voyager end.

She'd been marveling at her progress for a long time now. Today it seems even more evident.

"I hope you're well," Seven says, after she declines Janeway's invitation to sit. At least that is familiar.

"I am, Seven," Janeway lies with a bright smile, looking up at her tall protégé. "And you? How are you doing?"

"I am adjusting to life on Earth," Seven says softly. _Softly_.

They don't speak of Chakotay. Not anymore. In the first few weeks they had, but it had quickly become too painful. For both of them. Now, they discuss everything but him.

"Have you made a decision about that position they want to offer you?" Janeway asks, already certain she knows her former Astrometrics officer's response.

"I have," Seven nods. "I will not be joining Starfleet."

Or not. She had not expected Seven to refuse. If she's honest, it had never occurred to her as a possible outcome. It hurts. It shouldn't, but it sure as hell isn't a pleasant shock she's experiencing.

The former captain represses all outward reaction with great care. "All right," she says evenly. It isn't her choice to make, she reminds herself. She may think it's a mistake, but Seven isn't going to be made to realize that by telling her so. "Have you decided what you want to do instead?" the admiral asks.

Seven has come prepared for this. Janeway sees the certainty in the younger woman's face with a sinking in her gut well before she opens her mouth to answer. "There are three individuals on Starbase Eight Four who have been recently liberated from the Borg."

Liberated is a strong word. It was more like accidentally disconnected, but Janeway has heard about it. She'd been the first contact, in fact. A minor panic had spread throughout Starfleet when the damaged sphere had dropped out of transwarp on the fringes of Federation territory, but the navigation logs they'd recovered from the broken wreckage had reassured them that the sphere had not intended to land anywhere near the Federation. A malfunction in the navigation controls had led them too close to a quantum singularity and the Borg have shown no signs of coming back to salvage the wreck. Yet.

For now, at least, the frontier is quiet.

The three drones who had survived the devastation of the sphere, however, have been something of a problem. Starfleet hasn't known quite what to do with them. Two humans, both former Starfleet officers, and one Cardassian male. Removing their implants is necessary for two of them. The third has yet to decide to undergo the risky procedure. All three are being held in quarantine on base until the EMH can reach them to assist with their medical assessment.

"They require an individual with similar experience to guide them through their transition," Seven is explaining as a glassy-eyed Janeway tunes back into the present. "I possess that experience. To choose not to help would be…unkind."

"I agree," she says. Because of course she agrees that Seven should be kind. "But you don't have to leave Earth to do that," she proposes. "I'll have them transported here." _And to hell with the clamor the rest of them will raise over it_, she adds to herself. The question of whether or not she even has that kind of clout anymore, of whether or not she ever did, does not enter her mind – damn it.

"They are in quarantine," Seven reminds her.

"The quarantine period is nearly up. And the decision has been made that the doctor is the best person to oversee their care. You don't mind working with him, I assume?"

Seven's ocular implant rises with her brow. "You are attempting to keep me on Earth."

_Caught_. Janeway shrugs, unabashed. "I'm attempting to ensure that all the personal connections you're forging here aren't put on hold unnecessarily. If I have to pull a few strings in order to do that, I won't lose any sleep over it."

Seven's chin lifts in a gesture vaguely familiar to Janeway for reasons she can't quite place. "That won't be necessary. I am adapting to life on Earth. I will readapt to life in space."

"I'm sure you would. Maybe I wouldn't adapt so easily to your absence." There. She said it. And everyone's still standing. Miraculously.

Seven smiles softly. _Softly_. "I will miss you, as well, Admiral. However, we can communicate through subspace at any time. And I intend to return when I am no longer needed."

At least she isn't trying to desert her permanently.

The knot in her gut is a little too tight as Janeway sizes the former drone up, finality settling over their exchange. There is no altering this. Seven has made up her mind, and Janeway no longer has the authority to order her to change it.

Not having the last word is something that takes adjustment. Serious adjustment.

It can only be for a few months. Right?

Starfleet won't be letting those drones out of their custody anytime soon. They aren't eager to bring them to Earth, but they aren't letting them rejoin the Collective, either. How she feels about that, either way, she hasn't quite decided.

"Seven," she says.

"Admiral."

"You are one thing I did right out there."

That so-soft smile might have been what drew Chakotay to her side. How long had it existed before Janeway ever saw it? Seven's teasing words snap her out of the draping guilt blanketing her musings. "I believe the rest of the crew disagreed with you at the time. As did I."

She can't help but respond to that smile with a tiny half grin of her own. They have been through hell together, that much is certain. Some of it of their individual making, too. "I told you that I wouldn't support you going back to the collective until you'd regained the capacity to make that choice for yourself," the admiral recalls.

"And I have already told you that I do not wish to do so," Seven acknowledges. "I believe we should give these three drones that same chance to regain the ability to make that decision. But the transition was…difficult. If my experience can help them adjust during their transition, then I must try."

Janeway stands, circling her desk to approach Seven. She halts a step or so back, taking a long look at her protégé: the young woman who is the closest thing to a daughter that she has ever had and, it looks like, ever will have at this rate. Pride thrums through her, parallel to the hurt she has no right to feel and moisture stings her eyes as she reaches up and tucks a strand of golden hair that had been kicked up by the wind back into place. Seven allows this, regards her warmly, with affection, even, and she does not flinch from the embrace her former captain pulls her into. She even tentatively returns it, and Janeway's eyes sting harder with relief. And regret.

So much regret…

Janeway whispers through a throat that is traitorously tight, "Good luck, Seven."

Watching her leave is one of the more painful things she's ever done. Which is odd, for something that is only going to be temporary. A year, at most. Right?

The chronometer signals the end of her shift. She never lingers. She isn't comfortable in her sterile office. Her knickknacks don't fit as snugly in the bigger admiral's office as they had in her ready room. They're dwarfed by austere, too large white walls.

She packs up her PADDs, throws them into the handy carrying satchel B'Elanna so thoughtfully presented to her on her birthday, and heads home through the September mist, her eyes reflecting the murky fog that permeates her insides lately.

She stops off at the local pub, manages to nurse a glass of wine in silence for long enough to let darkness fall outside. Only then does she stand and make her way back to her silent apartment.

It's exactly one year since Chakotay disappeared. She isn't particularly surprised to find him standing in her darkened bedroom when she enters it.


	3. Chapter 3

Though there's no physical way he should be able to be here, she isn't surprised to find him standing in her bedroom tonight. He sees it in her expression, which is devoid of surprise even in deep shadows. She doesn't bother calling for lights to see if he is armed. She trusts him too much for that – still. Instead, she slinks to him, presses her body into his space.

"Kathryn," he starts, feeling compelled to say so many things to her.

"Shhh." She presses two fingers firmly over his lips. "Don't talk."

He shouldn't let her do this, but she is her, and her mouth is on his. Chakotay wraps his hands in her hair, draws her body against him while his tongue responds ardently to hers. Her hand works access into the pants that fall open all too easily for her; the contact of her cool hand on his hot flesh is jolting. Her proximity was always, is always enough to arouse him, and he's hard within seconds. The moderate skill of her insistent fondling is almost unnecessary. All she has to do is to be her, and to be near him. It shames him that they have known each other for nine years now and she still doesn't know this.

She'd said no talking. Instead he undresses her with barely civil pacing, too easily uses superior strength to disentangle her and to push her back on the bed before she can do much more than start thinking of protest. His head is buried between obligingly parted thighs, the openness with which she welcomes his mouth on her glistening intimate flesh giving him chills of entitlement. He doesn't know who else she might have been with all this time that he's been gone, and it could have been several men for all he knows or has a right to question. But he does know that Kathryn Janeway doesn't just spread her legs like this, take an inherently vulnerable position like this for any man, and she does not clutch his head to her or writhe and moan encouragement as openly as she does now. When she tenses, bucks up into his probing tongue and mouth, coming undone for him, he knows that it's only for him.

He doesn't deserve it. Not when he's an undisputed criminal twice over now. But he loves her for it. He loves her for still loving him.

He should never have come here. But he would have died if he'd stayed away from her one night longer. When they're finished and the aftermath has been drawn out in whispered endearments, meaningfully idle caresses long enough, he makes himself rise. He's already stayed far too long. Security will be here any minute.

He doesn't know what he'd expected after what he's done. That she'd rail at him, maybe. That she'd kick him out or turn him in immediately. That she'd take him into her bed so easily should surprise him. Except it doesn't. Not really. He knows her too well for that. Unfortunately for both of them.

She wanted him to be distracted. She'll use the opportunity of him having to redress before he leaves. He almost opens his mouth to save her the trouble of going through the whole charade, but he doesn't. How can he deny her this? She's Kathryn. She thrives on having her morality tested. Chakotay wonders if she'll ever learn this about herself, but mostly, he expects the phaser to be leveled at his chest as he rises from beside the bed, pulling his pants back over his hips.

He somehow hadn't expected that her eyes would the one to cloud.

"I'm sorry, Chakotay."

He must know that she is. Tears glisten in her eyes, and tears are the signposts of remorse. Aren't they?

He fastens his pants before he responds. His smooth bronze chest gleams with their combined sweat even in fog-muted moonlight. "You did what you had to do, Kathryn."

His words resonate throughout the room. And especially throughout her head. She can't breathe. This isn't right. It isn't how things should be.

"I understand," he promises her. Of course he does. He always has – more than anyone. "And now I have to go." He starts to turn toward the door.

Janeway raises the phaser, takes a steady, warning aim that draws his attention. Her eyes are shining at him in the moonlight that fights its way through the fog for one triumphant moment. "I'll stun you." The curt shake of her head, the bite of steel in her voice is something so many of their enemies have received but never him. Never like this. "Don't make me…" she asks.

Chakotay is anything but concerned. He grins at her. That dazzling, dimpled grin that somehow only highlights the pain in his clouding black eyes. "Oh, I know you will." He takes a last look at her, but it's a moment he doesn't have so it's short. Full of regrets. They've always been so full of regrets. "I'm sorry, Kathryn."

He always says her name as many times as he can. Some things about him never, ever change. No matter what else does. Her eyes burn with remorse at what she has to do. He's halfway out the door when she presses the trigger.

The phaser makes an odd noise but doesn't fire. The power cell's been cut. And he just had enough time to clear the doorway and melt into the darkness of the windowless hall. He's already activated transport before she could chase him.

Damn him. Damn them both. He knows where she keeps her phaser. He got to it before she ever entered the house, cut the fuel line and rendered it inoperable – but otherwise unchanged – so as to avoid detection by her until she actually tried to use it.

And now he's gone. The transport will take hours to trace, and by then he'll be on his way out of the system again: out of her life again. But somehow, through her anger at being bested by _him_, at not having expected it, Kathryn's grateful that he spared her having to drop him. To turn him in. As she hurriedly dresses, Chakotay's scent clings to her. Their combined fluids are still a slick, accusing presence between her thighs. Part of her wonders if she'd known all along what he had done, and she curses herself for not knowing which betrayal is worse in the long run. Starfleet or Chakotay? Damn him to the Delta Quadrant and back for making her choose – and for ultimately not letting her in the end.

He knew she would betray him. He knows her too well.

Admiral Paris isn't happy when he shows sixty seconds later, arrives in the living room of a house devoid of fugitive. He listens to her explanation with silent disappointment, hands the phaser she surrenders to the head of the security detail to be examined. The security officers wouldn't dare question her. Paris is not a subordinate. He sees the residual sweat in her tousled, still-damp hair. The fading flush on her face and neck. Owen's piercing look tells her he _wants_ to believe she wasn't complicit in Chakotay's escape, but the doubt is there.

It lingers. In both of them.

* * *

><p>The rose tint of home is all but gone. When she visits every Sunday, the rural house in Indiana that was her childhood home is everything that she remembered – and everything that she had selectively forgotten.<p>

The house is full of semi-strangers today. Phoebe is having one of her little art shows. Some of Phoebe's artist friends and teachers have come to sit and critique the abstract genius that is Phoebe. Staring blankly through swirls of color and texture that look at best like nebulae and at worst like children's finger-painting projects, Kathryn smiles politely. She sits next to Gretchen, warmly engages the various tortured souls in her mother's living room, hoping faintly that Phoebe appreciates the clout her sister's undeserving notoriety lends to her exposure. After exactly thirty minutes of discussion so pointless and esoteric it makes her skin crawl, Kathryn excuses herself to the kitchen, and Gretchen, unsurprisingly, follows her.

Gretchen hovers. Most times, she was too good to stoop to that level, but she has that way about her when she's worried. She still seems very worried. Gretchen always makes sure Kathryn's coffee cup is full. Between careful, planted moments of silence, she wants to know if Kathryn is seeing anyone.

"No time," Kathryn infallibly murmurs.

Gretchen perks up. Is the admiralty giving her work of any more significance, then?

"Not really. It's mostly busy work. But there's a lot of it." Finding Chakotay is a full time job in and of itself, she never adds. Her mother seems to know it anyway. The press sure as hell hasn't gotten tired of reporting on it yet.

When is she going to get a dog, since Molly is obviously too happy with her new family to ever take from them? Should they throw a party for Miral's birthday, or for Naomi's? Wouldn't Kathryn be happier if she could see them all more often?

She should really get better quality sleep. And try to eat more. Brownies and the vegetable bouillon she's so fond of living on lack crucial vitamins and coffee could never touch the health benefits of freshly squeezed juice: it's why her complexion is so pallid lately. Gretchen still keeps all three coming and in steady supply because somewhere deep inside she is insecure that Kathryn would come to see her so regularly if both weren't readily available. And if Kathryn doesn't come to see her, she won't be able to keep tabs on how she's doing. On how she's not doing.

Kathryn should really try the casserole her mother has offered her three times now, and it's the breaking point of thinning patience. Kathryn snaps at her, and Gretchen withdraws with pursed, offended lips to see to her guests, who should be leaving soon.

Kathryn's head drops to the cool countertop in self disgust. Her temper is out of control lately. Her secretary has gotten the brunt end of it, too.

Her mother means well, and Kathryn knows it. She'll apologize when Gretchen comes back.

It's Sunday afternoons that Kathryn remembers how her mother had never understood her the way that Daddy had. That's not to say that Gretchen doesn't _know_ her eldest daughter. She does. Very well in fact, but she's never fully understood her. Not like she does Phoebe, who is more like their mother than she ever was Edward. Since Voyager, the divide has only grown worse. Kathryn is not the person who left this planet almost nine years ago. She came back rusty and out of practice at being a daughter. A sister. She's never been all that stellar at it in the first place but that's an admission she has yet to make to herself on any conscious level.

By contrast, Phoebe understands her too well. Phoebe, she's never been able to fool. It's part of the friction that's always lain between them, and it's never been more in evidence than today as Phoebe ambushes her older sister in the kitchen this dreary, rainy afternoon.

"You aren't happy here. Mom doesn't want to admit it, but I can see it."

Kathryn's only half listening. "What are you talking about?" she pretends to want to know.

Phoebe scowls. "I thought being away from us for so long would make a difference, but it hasn't. Nothing we do for you is appreciated."

Kathryn tenses painfully, her attention caught. Nothing they do for _her_?

"You're out of your mind, Phoebe," Kathryn frostily assures her. "And I don't really feel like getting into a shouting match with–"

"Too bad. Because I feel like having one with you." Phoebe ignores her sister's tightening mouth, satisfied with having her full attention for once. "You think by coming to dinner every week that it's enough. You act like letting her fill your belly and your coffee cup is this long-suffering ritual that you go through for her."

"That's abs–"

"You think pretending you think my art is a real career is the duty you owe to me as your sister," Phoebe continues. "You don't believe it, but you pretend you do. You show up to one exhibit a year, claiming work keeps you from the rest, and you somehow think that makes you some kind of saint."

"You can't be serious." Kathryn's eyes are wide and faintly incredulous. How could her sister possibly say these things? After all the support she's constantly showing her? "I stayed for the entire exhibit, didn't I? I even helped clean up aft–"

"Well from now on, Sis, save your false praise, okay?" Phoebe steamrolls right over her, her small Janeway chin jutting out in defiance. "I don't need your approval to validate my work. My career is just as real as yours ever was."

Kathryn's mouth falls open at that. "I never said it wasn't!" Damn it, all she'd wanted was a quiet Sunday afternoon in her childhood home. Is that too much to ask after being gone for seven years? Really?

Apparently so.

"Can you deny that it's how you feel?"

"Yes!" Kathryn lies defensively.

Phoebe smirks. It's not a pretty expression. Her silence is accusatory.

Kathryn takes a deep sip of lukewarm coffee, a tactical maneuver designed to buy time. She lowers her cup slowly. Speaks the same way. "I do think your art is…real," she tries.

"No you don't," her sister snaps. "But I've got news for you. It's a hell of a lot more rewarding than your desk job is."

A sharp piquing sensation thrums through Kathryn. No one anywhere in four quadrants is as needlessly provocative as her younger sister in one of her mercurial, artistic tempers. "What the hell is wrong with you tonight?" Kathryn asks as mildly as she can: it's not very. "Did you come in here specifically to start a fight?"

"Maybe you need one," Phoebe retorts.

"What exactly is _that_ supposed to mean?"

"You're sleeping, Kathryn. You're walking around wide awake but you're asleep. I don't know what did it this time, or why or how, and it doesn't matter. Consider this your ice water, okay? Mom can't take much more of you walking around in a depressed haze. And it's starting to wear on my patience, too."

"You don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about," Kathryn dismisses coldly, starting to tune her sister out. There's no reasoning with her like this. And the day her sister does something worthwhile like getting a counseling degree is the day–

"Really? Let me take a stab at it. You believe in Starfleet because Daddy believed in it. You wanted to follow in his footsteps because you idolized him. All your life, you've gunned for admiral because he was one. Because you told yourself he'd only have been away from us all the time if it was really important stuff he was doing for the Federation. Only now you've done it, and you've found out it isn't anything close to what it's cracked up to be."

Her sister is treading on very thin ice, and Kathryn's tone lets her know it. "That's a wonderful fairy tale, Phoebe, and thank you for sharing it with me but–"

"So your entire life-long lie of a dream is nothing but a disappointing sham. You're having trouble dealing with that. Okay. That's understandable. But you'd better find a way. Because watching you like this is killing Mom. And some of us aren't too far up our own behinds to see it."

If Phoebe wasn't so far off the mark that it's borderline amusing, Kathryn's neck would probably snap with the tension building in her entire body. Through her teeth, she grits out, "If something I've said or done has upset her–"

"_Ev_erything you say and do upsets her!" Phoebe shouts. "You're not happy and she knows it, Kathryn! For God's sakes, you really think coming here to rub her nose in it once a week is helping anyone?"

"I come here _for_ her!" Kathryn retorts incredulously, feeling her blood pressure skyrocket with every passing judgment.

"And I'm saying don't anymore," Phoebe says coldly. "She'd rather get a comm. from you once a month if she could see you happy in it than have to worry about you in person once a week. It's killing her and she deserves some happiness after everything you and Daddy put her through. Damn it," Phoebe's hands slam angrily against the countertop as she demands, "how can you be this blind to the needs of the people who are supposed to be closest to you? _How_, Kathryn?"

"I–" This is absurd. Her sister is absurd. She always has been, Kathryn remembers now. Belatedly, she also remembers that sometimes the best way to handle Phoebe when she's like this is just to remain calm. It's rather like dealing with the mentally ill or making first contact through a faulty translator. Kathryn forces herself to speak slowly and calmly, using very small words. Unclenching her jaw just isn't going to happen, though. "Phoebe," she starts. "I don't even know where all this is suddenly coming from but–"

"It's coming from _years_, Kathryn! Forty plus years of you going through the motions with Mom and me and never letting us get really close to you!" her sister explodes in one uncontrolled burst, making Kathryn blanch.

"That's not true," Kathryn argues, white-faced and stunned. "You know that's not true!"

"What's true is that we never filled the hole that Daddy left for you," her sister says bluntly. "We tried, but we've never been able to do it – and now Starfleet isn't even enough to do it anymore."

"That's an awful thing to say, Phoebe Janeway. It's cruel, and it's unkind," Kathryn hisses.

Phoebe's wild curls shake softly around her neck and shoulders. "No, Kathryn," she tells her sister sadly. "It isn't. Not when it's the truth. I don't even think it's your fault, really. You and Daddy had this special relationship. You both tried to hide it, but no one could ever deny it. And ever since he's been gone, Mom and I haven't been enough for you."

Kathryn's stinging eyes shine with shocked emotion. "I do love you, Phoebe," Kathryn whispers, throat raw and tight under the unspeakable accusations her sister seems to be hurling at her out of nowhere. "I love both of you. You can't possibly believe…there's no way that you can doubt that."

Phoebe's hand slices exasperatedly through the tense air between them. "Oh for God's – of course not. Don't get all holier than thou on me. It won't work on me; I'm not your crewman."

Kathryn's head cocks sharply, her spine stiffening. "What the hell is _that_ supposed to mean?"

Fully realizing what she's just let slip, Phoebe ducks her head, pinches the bridge of her nose. She takes an uncharacteristically shaky breath before looking up again. "Look, I'm sorry, okay? I didn't mean to get into – that's probably just my own jealousies talking. I shouldn't have brought that into–"

"Jealousy! Of my _crew_?"

Just how selfish is her sister?

She has the grace to back down from her rabid dog attack pattern, at least in these few seconds expressed her embarrassment. "It's just…they don't know you the way that I do. And I don't know you the way they do. They know some version of you we'll never get to see. Sometimes I just wish…" She stops herself while Kathryn stares on, incredulous, then thinks the better of it. Phoebe has never been one to hedge, and she is no more so after nine years. "I wish we could see the you that they see. The Kathryn that Daddy saw," Phoebe whispers.

"I don't have any idea what you're talking about." Her head shakes faintly as she tries to comprehend. She truly doesn't. "I'm me. I'm Kathryn – your sister."

"No, you're not. I don't even know who you are anymore. And this isn't even what I came in here to tell you."

"Then what is? For the love of quantum physics, please do tell me!"

Phoebe inhales again as her hands find the edge of the counter, seemingly to ground herself. "I know that you love us. Okay? And we love you. It's _because_ of that that I'm telling you this. Go find the something that fills that hole for you. And do it before it's too late, Kathryn. For you and for Mom. Because I'm half afraid that it already is."

"Maybe that isn't possible anymore." The soft words are out of her mouth before she even realizes she's humoring her sister's insane fantasies about a reality only she lives in.

"Neither is making it back here from the Delta Quadrant in seven years," her sister retorts, unbothered by the claim. "But then you always did get what you wanted."

"Now you're confusing me with yourself," Kathryn snarls, pushed to her limits. _That_ is a decades old button to push. It was Phoebe whose temper tantrums had always gained her everything she ever asked for. It was Phoebe's cute little screwed up, pouting face that always been indulged. Her curly hair shaking with tiny rage that had allowed her to go to art school instead of pursuing something meaningful. It was Phoebe who had all the attention and the boyfriends growing up and now she dares to stand there and say–

"Am I?" Phoebe Janeway has the most infuriating way of raising her eyebrow when she's mocking someone. It makes Kathryn see red. "Is it that captain of yours?" Phoebe pretends to ponder. "That Chakotay man?"

What the hell?

"Is _what_ him?" She can't keep up with the ridiculous statements spewing from her sister's mouth.

"Oh Gods, Kathryn. No," Phoebe moans, sagging theatrically before Kathryn's disbelieving eyes. "Anyone can see he never deserved you. Don't you know that by now? Love is about putting the person you love ahead of everything else. Even warped ideals about duty and loyalty. I know Daddy's version of love screwed you up enough to think that's all you deserve but it's not."

"Now you're just being–"

Her sister talks right over her, intent on having her say. "You never noticed, but Mom at least modeled how to love someone unconditionally. There aren't any price tags attached to her love, but you never did pick up on that."

"You can't even believe the ridiculous things you're–"

"You deserve someone who's going to understand you the way that Daddy did," Phoebe's steadily-rising voice drowns her out. "But more than that, someone who's going to worship the ground you walk on in spite of that, and one that would never do anything to hurt you. For a while there, I thought you saw that. I thought Mark…" Phoebe shakes her head in dismay. "Well, that ship has sailed and this one… Drop this guy, Kathryn. Seriously – forget him. He's not what you need. It's love like that, love with conditions and boundaries that destroys you from the inside out."

"This from the girl who never did know appropriate boundaries even when they were slapping her in the face!"

"I don't pine away after someone who clearly doesn't love me enough to be worth pining for, either."

"This week," Kathryn snarks, too incensed to bite back on it.

Phoebe only laughs. "This decade you mean. I was sixteen. But thanks for rubbing my nose in it again."

Kathryn inhales sharply. How? How is her sister always bringing out the absolute worst in her? How? "Phoebe, damn it, I'm sorry. I didn't mean–"

"For God's sake, Kathryn," her sister plows over her feeble attempt at an apology, uninterested, "if you're being that bitchy it only means I'm hitting a nerve. A deep one. And that's my whole point. I'm trying to tell you that you've suffered enough. It's been enough. Even Daddy understood that Starfleet can't give you the kind of fulfillment a family can – somewhere inside of him he knew it. If it isn't a family you want, so be it. But there has to be more for you. Go find your more. Because the you that came back isn't the you that anyone wants or needs in their lives. Least of all your family or even your _former_ crew."

Kathryn almost smacks Phoebe at that last one; she almost hauls off and slaps her like they're twelve and ten again. She opens her mouth to growl, hell, to scream back all the reasons that what her sister so ignorantly commands her to do is impossible, why she's dead wrong about the assumptions she's making, about Daddy, about Chakotay, about everything, damn it, but she isn't given the chance. Without another word, Phoebe snatches what's left of her sister's half-eaten brownie, popping it whole between her coral-stained lips as she stalks out of the kitchen, triumphant in a battle Kathryn had never fully understood the rules or aim or provocation for.

Kathryn's left brownie-less. Delusion-less. Kicked in the gut and stripped raw the way only her sister could ever make her.

She's wrong. She's so wrong. About all of it. The little monster known as her sister is just better at putting on a concerned show than she is. Phoebe's sound kiss to her mother's weathered cheek, her promise to meet Gretchen for their usual Monday lunch date carries through the hall and into the kitchen where Kathryn sits numbly, trying to digest the indigestable. It only adds insult to injury.

She's a decent sister. She's a very good daughter, though she will admit she was a better captain than she ever was anything else. She got her people home – most of them – and she is a good mentor to them now. She is, damn it. She _is_. They still need her, even if her mother and sister don't. She repeats the truths she knows to be indisputable fact over and over as she sits there with stinging and empty eyes, trying to reconstruct her infamous composure.

Somehow, none of it quite rings true. She can't quite make herself believe. Anger eats away at the lining of her churning stomach, pitching and roiling within her.

She's going to strangle Phoebe the next time she sees her. This time, she really is. Her tirade was cruel and entirely uncalled for. It was. Kathryn is going to wring Phoebe's pretty little–

Because those are good, decent, Starfleet and sisterly thoughts. It's the drop that overflows the bucket.

For the first time in almost two years, Kathryn sits in a room by herself and cries until her nose runs and her cheeks burn red with irritation. Until there's no moisture left and she isn't breathing without great, heaving hiccups of misery. It feels surprisingly good to wallow in self-pity.

When Gretchen appears in the doorway, she takes one look at her eldest daughter. Hard lines grief have etched across her features melt in instant empathy, her thinning arms opening in that unconditional way Phoebe had thrown up in Kathryn's face not ten minutes earlier.

It sets her off again, almost ruins the comfort of burrowing into her mother's neck and crying like she's twelve years old again.

Almost.


	4. Chapter 4

"Admiral, you have an incoming transmission from Vulcan."

"Put it through. I'll take it at my desk."

"Yes, ma'am." Heavy pause. "You know you have the committee meeting at 1600."

Clouded blue eyes flick up to the chronometer on the far wall. Three minutes from now. Good.

"This is an urgent call, Madeline." It isn't but compared to that godforsaken Committee of Nothingness it is. "Pass along a message that I may be delayed. And I'm not to be disturbed until I say otherwise." She cuts off communication from the room without bothering to hear the reply. Madeline is nothing but a placement of the upper brass who reports her comings and goings to those who still don't trust her. To those who never really will.

"Tuvok," she greets her old friend with relish, instantly brightening at the sight of his familiar face on her screen. No secret is made of her thorough perusal until she decides aloud, "You're looking well." Another relief, on some repressed level. The worry hasn't really subsided until perhaps just now: now that she sees him in good health once more. While his condition hadn't been overly evident to anyone who knew him less well than she or other Voyager crewmembers, he had been looking a little ragged around the edges by the time debriefings ended and he was cleared to seek treatment.

"I will be able to return to my post within several months," is his succinct report.

How she's missed those. And him.

"Well, I can't wait for you to come back to us." An impish half smile she almost means. "But I might miss the Vulcan coffee more."

"You received the latest shipment?"

"Just yesterday." She lifts her mug within view of the imager, takes a deep and appreciate sip. Swallows, and sighs, "You saved me the trouble of calling to thank you."

"I am pleased that you enjoy it." She knows that he is as he adds, "You also know that T'Pel will see to your supply when I return to Voyager."

"Yes, she was always very dutiful about that," Kathryn agrees with the first heartfelt grin she's flashed in months.

Tuvok's study of her smile, her face and complexion is as concealed as hers was. "Perhaps you will take a meal with me when I return, Admiral."

"I'm eating plenty," she laments with a rueful pat of a midsection he can't see beneath the huge silver desk. "Don't worry."

"And are you sleeping well also?"

Her brow quirks into a fluid red arch. "Bucking for Chakotay's job? Remember, you still have a rank to go before they'll hand you the captain's chair, old friend."

And that was the stupidest thing she's said in some time. It's the exact opening he's been waiting for for months now. The bare pause before he addresses it isn't even two beats long.

"I was in error nine years ago," he intones seriously, a darkness she hasn't seen for some time shadowing the flesh beneath his cheekbones. "I allowed you to instate him as first officer against my better judgment."

Both brows climb. "You _allowed_ me?"

"I could have remained unswayed by your arguments."

"And you could have remained in the brig for the rest of the journey, too. You were vocal enough, believe me," her dour sarcasm assures.

"Perhaps not."

Tuvok, in short doses, can be as stubborn as Chakotay ever could. The things she's constantly forgetting about those closest to her, the longer she goes without seeing them. Warningly, she reminds him, "Your objections were well noted in my logs."

"As they were in mine," he returns, and she is suddenly reminded of the piquing annoyance Phoebe had wrung from her days ago.

Her raised brow serves as all the response necessary. It so often does.

Wisely, Tuvok allows the conversation to evolve to the point he'd intended to make at its opening. "It is not your failure, Admiral. Every one of us aboard Voyager came to trust Commander Chakotay. He was able to deceive all of us."

"Yes," she agrees tonelessly, suddenly as removed from the situation as she has been from most over the past long months. "He was, wasn't he?"

Why isn't that statement right? It's the truth. And yet she knows damned well that it's not. It's not the whole truth, it cannot be the truth, or the equation of Chakotay simply does not balance, and the question of why still plagues her. Haunts her.

_Why_?

Leaning forward obscures some of the background of her too pristine office from the imager. She's aware of that as her frame fills more of the screen. "Tell me about your grandson. I can hardly believe how much he's grown since his last picture."

She shifts the topic deliberately. Tuvok knows it. He allows it because the steel in her eyes dares him to push the subject any further than he has.

He was never an overly daring creature. When he had to be, maybe. This is not that time. She listens to the succinct relating of the boy's more noteworthy childhood milestones and wonders if he's secretly half relieved to no longer have that burden. She wonders if he ever really wanted it in the first place. She wouldn't have, in his place.

When he signs off, she's left with a bittersweet longing for things that exist only in memory – and all the questions that haunt her existence about the man her old friend had warned her against so adamantly all those many years ago. They should have listened to their instincts, he said. He's right. Only…her instincts had never given so much as a hint of warning from the moment she locked eyes with Chakotay over the view screen and that fact is slowly eating away at her from the inside out. Her instincts are usually sound. Dead on, in fact. Experience has taught her to trust them.

He's talked of loyalties and belonging and duty and honor. Of cabbages and kings.

Chakotay would have found that funny. It was his favorite line from the book, as she recalls…

_Damn_ him.

At least the call gives her an excuse to skip the committee meeting.

It will be another month before two years has passed since his disappearance. Every likely backward colony or space station has been scoured. All strategically-placed agents have been recalled as of this morning. The investigation into Chakotay's whereabouts has been officially closed. He's still listed as a fugitive, but one who is too smart to show his face anywhere he'd be expected to. He has no verifiable ties to any Maquis sympathetic locations or organizations, as Starfleet's many spies have reported. Or if he does, it's only with factions Starfleet doesn't yet know exist. Considering the depth of Starfleet's network of spies and operatives in this Post Dominion world, the likelihood of someone whispering _hints_ of that and not being overheard by their operatives is nonexistent.

He didn't leave her simply to pick up his old ties. That much is now apparent. But then _why_? Why liberate the remaining Maquis and disappear? Why do it at all, if there were no plans to rebuild what they'd once had? Everyone, including her, has naturally assumed that this was his primary goal and it's not the case. It doesn't make sense. None of it makes any sense.

The anger just won't come anymore. She's been waiting for that to resurface, the extra edge she needs to fuel her into finding him. She has every reason to be furious with him. Every reason. He's the last person to deny her that. Owen's words, the words of the stubborn few admirals adamant about finding Chakotay, and Phoebe's are just some of the comments that bother her. Not one of them has said anything she hasn't said to herself in those early months following his disappearance. They're all absolutely right.

It's just that, the fact is, every one of them is also dead wrong. In fundamental ways that are so easy to overlook, Chakotay has forgotten more about loyalty than most of them have ever known. Her included.

He stuck by her through thick and thin. Through right and unquestionable, ungodly wrong. Even when he shouldn't have.

She did a lot of good out there. There's no denying this even on her best self-hating of days. But oh, she did so very, very much wrong in the process. There's no way to deny this even on her worst of self-justifying days.

Stranding her crew for starters. Interfering with the Kazon and the Ocampa. Making an alliance with the Borg. _The Borg_ for gods' sakes. Giving technology to the Hirogen. The Equinox. These are all the boring, glaring things that she has done and it's been done to death. She's sick to high hell of analyzing them, with counselors, inquisition panels, colleagues and friends. She won't waste any more time doing so. Oddly enough they aren't even what bother her nowadays.

There are so many mistakes she could so easily have paid for and didn't, mistakes that have gone largely unnoticed because they turned out all right in the end: mistakes that no one bothered to call her on – except Chakotay, really, and him only in private. Those days when she refused to compromise – refused to see reason. How many had they lost due to her inability to change, her absolute fear of bending, especially in the beginning? How many times had she snapped at one of them, at him for understandably human mistakes?

How many times had she modeled the unyielding, hard standards of perfection that had been taught to her at such a young and tender age?

There were days out there that her own arrogance and self-righteousness almost choked them all. She can see it all so clearly now. Through all of it, one man stood by her.

B'Elanna's vim and vigor towards him hasn't dimmed since that first day. Her anger leaves no room for Tom's, and he's probably the closest ally Chakotay has on this planet. Bizarrely. Even this morning, when Janeway dutifully stops by for an early morning in-Paris-house breakfast, when Tom asks grimly if there's any word or sighting, she knows it's out of concern – which is the only reason she doesn't snap but prepares to answer him. B'Elanna utters the usual string of Klingon expletives at the sound of his name alone, saving her former captain from having to formulate a response that divulges nothing classified.

Janeway and Paris both pretend to listen but ignore her, used to doing so, and when Janeway excuses herself to find the bathroom – this isn't her first cup of coffee this morning – they think she can't still hear them speculating to each other.

"You're being a little harsh, don't you think? He was more your friend than ours."

"I thought he was. But he cared more about misplaced loyalty to a dead cause than he did about her trust. Or mine. It's that simple, Tom."

A meter from the door sensor to the bathroom, Janeway halts at that last statement, the churning in her gut about as wrong as any sensation she ever feels anymore.

"You were just as much Maquis as him not all that many years ago, if I recall."

"Our cell was crushed by the Dominion War. The entire movement was. And I grieved for that loss."

"I remember," Tom says quietly, and Janeway's belly kicks even more uncomfortably because so does she.

"But I finally accepted that some things aren't meant to last. It would be one thing if I was as deluded as he is about being able to revive the movement," B'Elanna's stony voice carries firmly into the adjacent hall, broken only at tiny Miral's vocal insistence that Tom put her down. "But those colonies are dust and rubble now. I have a _daughter_ now. What I might have cared about two years ago and what I want now aren't remotely the same things. The truth is that Starfleet is the best life we can give her. "

"They've changed, though. We all see it."

"Those border security protocols are necessary. The neutral zones are too unstable."

Janeway lingers only in surprise, of course, not because she's so rude that she'd intentionally eavesdrop. The lack of segue into B'Elanna's argument suggests it's an old point of contention and that makes sense. The debate is being had at the highest echelons of Starfleet Command as well. But to hear B'Elanna be the one to defend Starfleet policy – they've come a long way indeed. Yet in which direction? Forward, or back? The distinctions between them grapple like shadows in the fog, with no clear victor anymore.

"Those border security measures are borderline _militaristic_, is what they are," Tom grumbles around a mouthful of something very large, from the muffled quality of his syllables.

Janeway won't admit it yet, but she secretly agrees with him. In her heart of hearts, she does.

"Maybe. All right, probably – Miral, _no_. We do not pull hair. But I can't even say I'm that upset about them caring more about security these days than philanthropy. If it means she's safe, I can live with it. And I don't see how you can argue it, either– _ow_! Take your daughter, please."

The conversation swiftly diverges into the kind of argument so familiar to her between this particular husband and wife. Janeway stops listening, but the conversation sticks with her all day. Chakotay, her tormenting inner arguments about loyalty, trust, stick with her all day.

The more she tries to cling to the certainty of those around her, the more accusing Chakotay of lacking loyalty is something that she just can't do without serious introspection.

Even with Equinox, the glaring things, he had stood by her. In the ways that mattered, he had. Even when he probably lost the support of most of the crew by standing back and choosing inaction, he hadn't budged. He'd never tried to take her command.

She still has not been able to put a finger on where exactly she's gone wrong. When did she lose him? Really lose him? Clearly it was well before she ever even thought it. It had to be for him to go to Seven of all people. That still stings, but he admitted his stupidity, apologized for it. Holding that against him any longer would make her a bitch, wouldn't it?

She certainly hadn't been holding it against him when his body had covered hers in the darkness of her bedroom. In those instants of unfiltered need, she hadn't been thinking of Seven. Or of him, if she is honest now. Had she been only slightly more aware of his internal war, whatever the nature of it, they would not be here now.

Their last moments together play in her mind, a torture reel of images, sounds, sensations. They melt into prior arguments and quiet moments that stretch all the way back to the tail end of the Val Jean on her view screen as she chased his ship into the mercurial badlands–

A plasma jolt striking her full in the face would have less impact. It hits her now, hard. How stupid she's been all along.

She sits straight up in her stationary chair. Of course he isn't in any of those fixed places they've been scouring. When Chakotay is being pursued, he trusts the mobility of ships to the limitations of unmoving land masses under his feet. He'd always preferred it. So has she, in fact. That is a fundamental fact she at some point knew of him and had forgotten. Maybe because of how long she's been grounded herself. Stuck in one place, with one view, one set weather pattern, one kind of people with one real philosophy to choose from – eventually, it molds one's thinking to conformity with the majority.

Chakotay is not that majority. He's contrary. He doesn't stay in one place for long. He'd never take a transport ship to a station or settle down on some remote outpost, posing as someone else. This is not really news to her. It shouldn't be. Yet for two years, she has been approaching the matter of finding him the way she would most any other person.

Why? She wouldn't be a scientist if that wasn't the first question she'd been asking ever since she was a little girl. Why would she be so obtuse about something as simple and uncomplicated as finding Chakotay the Betrayer? He made her look stupid: absolutely incompetent. Twice. Twice, he entered her bed, took what she offered him and left her holding the bag. Twice she let him do it. The anger won't come, no matter how hard she baits it.

Why?

He's stood by her. Yes, he's hurt the hell out of her, but that's never been a one-way street and it's never been for intentionally trying to hurt the other person. She likes to think the good has outweighed the bad – far outweighed it. That at the end of the day, Chakotay is a good person, and that he believes this of her, too.

Out there in the Delta Quadrant, all they'd had was each other. He'd given her honesty first and support second, and he was her redeeming grace more times than she can count. He is the one person to have fully understood the impossible choices she was faced with. There may have been plenty of times that he'd disagreed with her on how to handle them, but it never changed the fact that Chakotay understood the constant no-win scenarios she'd been thrown into. He understood _her_. Of all of them, he's the one person who–

_He stood by her. Even when she was wrong._

It makes what she has to do even harder, she thinks, hardening herself against those unwelcome realizations. They can't and don't stop her from ordering the untouched archived surveillance data she should have been looking at all along. Now that she's looking at the ion trails in the proper fashion, not for end destinations but for total flight time and vectors, it only takes her two days to find what she is looking for.

She tells no one what she is planning. Not quite yet. What is the point, if this proves to be one more false trail in a long string of searching? Especially now that the investigation into his whereabouts are closed, she tells herself.

No. Not quite yet.

When she returns to her empty apartment to pack her things and prepare for her early departure to the fringes of Federation territory the next morning, it's with a heavy heart that she can't seem to reconcile to what she's about to do. By no means will this be easy. It scares the hell out of her, if she's honest. But it has to be done. She's been left with no other viable alternative.

The only remaining question will be how much support, and how alone she'll really be when all is said and done with it.

The letters she needs to write can be composed en route to her destination. However, before she leaves, she has a house call to make. She only hopes the person she most needs to speak to won't refuse her invitation.

* * *

><p>Phoebe hands her a steaming coffee mug, looking pissed to be pulled to their mother's house so late at night, but the first words out of Kathryn's mouth suck the edge right out of her.<p>

"I've been an awful big sister. I admit it."

The tension lines around the younger woman's eyes and mouth melt considerably. "Pretty bad, yeah," Phoebe agrees, sipping less angrily at her own mug.

Kathryn thumps her sister's shoulder playfully, scowling. "You weren't supposed to agree with me."

"Sorry. Should I lie?" Phoebe asks, carefully steadying her ebbing beverage against the extra movement. The drink settles, and she looks up. "Okay. You're the best, Katie. I never missed you when you left for the academy and never called home to see how I was doing."

"Oh, Phoebe." God. It goes that far back. "I was eighteen and it was my first real taste of freedom," Kathryn tries to explain. "I had everything to prove to myself in the most competitive organization on Earth. In several systems, actually."

"You mean you had everything to prove to Daddy," Phoebe corrects.

"I'm not interested in getting into that with you again." It'll be one short conversation if that happens.

"Fine." By her tone, it's not, but for once, Phoebe drops the issue. She rubs the side of one artistically styled boot against the other, staring at the floor from the high stool she sits upon. "You could have called sometimes."

"I did, at first. You always seemed too busy to talk to me. I remember thinking you could have been more interested in what _I_ was doing, as a matter of fact."

Phoebe shrugs half-heartedly. "I was mad, Kathryn. And lonely. What did you expect? I _missed_ you."

"So you were punishing me." Kathryn nods, finally able to fill in pieces she didn't even know were missing.

"Fat lot of good it did," Phoebe snorts. "You didn't even notice."

Not really. No.

"I thought about you all the time." That much is true, at least. "It took months to get used to not tripping over you or your art supplies every time I turned around. Sometimes I'd turn around to make some inside joke with you – and you wouldn't be there. I looked forward to graduating and seeing more of you again but…" Kathryn trails off, memory failing.

"But by the time you did, years had passed. We'd grown apart."

"I suppose so."

"You don't have to be jealous of my art."

Kathryn starts in surprise. "I'm not–"

"I know you've got the yearning for it. You've probably got the physical ability somewhere. Just not the patience."

"I don't," Kathryn denies ruefully on the heels of the silence that stretches between them for a time.

Phoebe frowns. "You don't what?"

"Have the physical ability," Kathryn admits, cringing to swivel on her own stool and face her sister more fully. "I tried," she says, embarrassed. "When we were out there, on days that I missed you really badly, I…sometimes, I sculpted. Or painted. It helped clear my mind. And it made me feel a little closer to you, even though you were so many light years away. But the results were less than stellar." Her sister's wide grey eyes make her self-conscious. She shifts to pull her oversized sweater closer against an imaginary chill. "You don't have to be jealous of my crew. I love them, yes. Unconditionally. And I love you with the same intensity. Differently, maybe," the last weeks of serious reflection finally allow her to conclude, "but just as much. Tell me you can believe that," Kathryn requests plaintively.

"I know that," the younger woman sighs. "I do." She shrugs at her sister's penetrating look. "I can't help it if I've got a selfish streak where you're concerned."

Kathryn thinks back to Daddy. To times when she fought the same irrational resentment over the cadets he trained and worked with. She thinks she understands. She hates that: causing that pain in anyone else. But she understands it.

"But if one of them resigned Starfleet," Phoebe asks out of the blue: a habit of hers that stretches well back into childhood and one Kathryn is slowly readjusting to. "If he quit to become an artist. What would you say to him? I'm curious."

"I'd tell him…he could do both," Kathryn tries carefully.

A caustic huff escapes her sister. "Yeah. That's what I thought," Phoebe says flatly, looking away to the opposite wall. "Next subject."

"Phoebe…"

She holds up a hand. "I know. I know." They're silent for another small time, sipping bold brews in uncomfortable unison. Phoebe opens again. "Starfleet isn't what it used to be. The war has changed them."

"I know," Kathryn has to quietly concede.

"Do you?" The sidelong glance is ruthlessly assessing. "Do you really?"

"Yes. That much was obvious from the moment we returned. But I didn't want to see it." She can't help but see it now.

"Now that you do…are you going to stay in?"

The thought gives rise to a muted sensation akin to panic but it's easily discarded. "I've never imagined doing anything else."

"What if they keep you out of space?"

This time the panic seems wilder, but she quells it quickly. Swallows softly to ask, "What of it?"

"Space is where you belong. You've never stayed on Earth for more than a year at a time."

At that, Kathryn has to laugh, however bitterly. "I spent seven years fighting to get back here. I'm not in any great hurry to leave."

"Liar."

Kathryn gives her a look and Phoebe smirks knowingly. "Kathryn, the thing about you is that you want what you don't or can't have. The second someone says 'can't' to you, you're all over it. That's Daddy's fault."

"Even if I was going to say you're right about the first, you're dead wrong about the second."

"No I'm not. I'm just not blind to it the way you are. I watched you chase his approval for twenty five years. He'd stopped trying with me early on. Probably because I'd decided at about four that his approval came with too steep a price tag. Mom's arms were always open unconditionally," she says again.

So they were. Kathryn is sorry she wasn't a better daughter to their mother, but that was what Phoebe excelled at. Kathryn, on the other hand, had been what their father needed. She can't help defending him. Even now. "Daddy pushed us to excel."

"And you have," Phoebe acknowledges openly. "But what do you have for it?"

"I don't know." Irritation sparks, mostly at the amount of times her sister has wrung this response from her. "And I told you I'm not getting into that with you."

"Okay, okay. No Daddy." Silence. "I loved him too, you know," Phoebe's voice is barely loud enough to audibly add. "I miss him too."

The break in her sister's voice puts one in Kathryn's too. "I know that." She does, or her sister would never have made it past young adulthood with some of the things she's said about him. About both of them.

Kathryn has always understood that Phoebe channeled all her grief over their father's death into being so angry with him for dying that she couldn't see straight when thinking of him. For her, that has been easier.

It might have been easier for Kathryn, had she been able to, she thinks sadly now.

"You still need to find your answers, Kathryn," Phoebe breaks into her thoughts. "Somehow, you have to resolve this crossroads you're stuck in. You're not eighteen anymore. You don't have your whole life ahead of you. You're going to have to make some kind of decision soon. And it starts with getting yourself back out into space. That's where you belong. We've known that forever."

Kathryn sighs deeply. "I know." She does. She just hasn't wanted to admit that she is slowly going crazy on this beautiful planet she'd strived so hard to reach again.

"Okay, then. As long as you know." Phoebe pats her shoulder bracingly. Straightens from her chair and grins, setting her empty mug on the counter for her sister to recycle for her. "Good talk, Sis. Let's do it again sometime. Maybe not soon though. Or this late, either."

"Phoebe…" Kathryn's hand shoots out to grab her sister's retreating arm.

Phoebe glances down at the fingers wrapped tightly around her forearm, faintly alarmed at the strength behind the grip. "What?"

Loosening her hold, Kathryn waits a beat to make sure she really means what she's about to ask. Is filled with relief to realize that she does. "Stay?"

Phoebe raises an eyebrow, but she can read the sincerity in her sister's eyes. If she's surprised, it's a pleased kind of surprise. "Sure," she says, plopping back down in her vacated chair less awkwardly than she would have expected. She taps fashionably black-painted fingernails on a cream countertop. She's never been all that good at still life. "Wanna watch a holovid? Mom still keeps all our old favorites on file."

She would. It's classic Gretchen. Kathryn shrugs. "Not really. I think I just feel like talking. Like we used to." So, so many years ago. Back when things had been simple.

"You? Just feel like talking?" Phoebe teases. "I knew you were an alien pretending to be my sister."

A wry half smile is wrung at that. "Yes. Me. I feel like talking."

"Okay. What about?"

Kathryn studies her very pretty sister, considering. Damn Phoebe for not showing her age yet the way she does. She takes a breath. Exhales. "Tell me about your art," she requests. "What are you working on now?"

Kathryn stares in horror as Phoebe's eyes water. Her full lower lip trembles mutinously as she tries to blink back gathering moisture. She fails utterly, bursts into tears. Loud, _very loud_ tears.

For the first time in very long months, Kathryn feels a complete and total connection to another human person as her arms open to enfold her sister, who burrows deep into her neck and bawls without reserve. It feels so good that her own eyes sting.


	5. Chapter 5

The shuttle she's claimed for personal use is a luxurious one. There's too much space for one person, but that's a relief. Alone with niggling thoughts and expansive emptiness, she'd be too claustrophobic otherwise. Relief as it is to parts of her soul, a ship this tiny takes getting used to.

At least there's no godforsaken _fog_.

She has ten days to come up with the answers to all the questions that burn her, and once more, so much of her energy goes into figuring out where everything went wrong. She finds herself counting, cataloging betrayals.

The first was when he'd gone after Seska but she's reluctant to count that. He'd done that to save the crew. Misguided as it had been, that is the kind of man that he is. He'd never lied to her about how he felt about the alliance with the Borg. Angry as she'd been to awaken to the reports on what he'd done while she'd been unconscious in sickbay, she'd reviewed the facts in the weeks afterward. He had made a judgment call and was well within his rights to do so.

Riley had not been of his own free will.

Teero. Again, not his fault. Again, it had taken some time to forgive him for it, but that's not to say she ever told him that. That doesn't count. Much as she'd like to hold it against him, she'd never really been able to after a few months of hard reflection.

Seven counts as one half a betrayal, and not a deliberate one. She won't believe that of him. At worst, it was selfish shortsightedness, near unforgivable lapse in judgment. Very near, but no lasting harm was done to Seven, who is thriving on Starbase Eight Four in spite of the difficult adjustment if the communiques are any indication. Had that not been the case…had Seven been hurt in any way…she can't say she would have forgiven that before hell froze over. But Seven is fine.

No. Until two years ago, he's never truly betrayed her. That time was the first.

He still came back for her. Doing that was risking everything. His freedom, any life he's built for himself. It wasn't to taunt her. She knows him well enough to know that, never questioned it. Coming back was arrogant, assuming as hell, but it had been for her as much as for him. To check on her, she knows now. And if a quick fuck had been all he'd been after, there were any number of more convenient, probably younger and attractive marks that would have fallen into his bed if he had so much as crooked his finger. He'd never had a problem in that department. So no. He came back for her. To see her.

And cutting the power cell to her phaser? Stopped her from betraying him. Letting her sleep with him, again, under the pretense of keeping him there and catching him unawares? She'll lump all that in with the first, considering the implications of what would have happened if he hadn't done those things.

They're at one and a half, then.

He betrayed her trust once. And she his.

Seven years of what they went through together doesn't just disappear with one act. No matter how wrong. No matter how furious she is. Was.

_Is. _

She needs to know. She needs to hear all of the answers to her questions from his lips before she knows how to reconcile the inner war he ignited in her when he walked away from her…twice.

Where he secured a cloaked ship she doesn't know, but she can take a few educated guesses. He's the most resourceful man she's ever met. Always has been. Unfortunately for him, cloaking requires power that leaves other systems wanting. His shields aren't substantial while he's hiding, and one well-planned shot knocks out his propulsion before he ever reads her hiding in the magnetic moon crater his ship is passing over. Armed, she keys the mathematically derived coordinates and hopes like hell she materializes where she'd planned and before the person she's fairly sure she's going to meet. If it isn't him, this is going to be awkward.

* * *

><p>"Hello, Kathryn." He isn't surprised to see her materialize on his flight deck. Not really. He's armed but makes no move to unholster his weapon: a wise decision, as hers is out and trained on him already. She clearly means business.<p>

"Chakotay," she acknowledges coolly, her weapon never wavering.

"I'd started to think you weren't even trying."

"So had I," she agrees curtly.

His eyes pass over her, burning ebony washing over ivory skin and civilian clothing. "You're out of uniform," he notes carefully.

"So are you."

The nod is a thoughtful one. "But I'm not in Starfleet anymore."

"No. You aren't." She won't wait one second longer. "Why, Chakotay? I need to know why."

His sigh fills her bones with his regret. He rubs his hands over his face, shrinking under her gaze as he sags forward, elbows braced on his knees. "I had a debt to repay."

That's not nearly enough. "A debt?" she presses.

"Sveta gave me my life back when she took me under her wing. The Maquis gave me a purpose when all I wanted was to curl up and die. That purpose may have been anger, but it probably saved my life. I owed them my life. There's never been any escaping that for me. And I don't know any other way to explain it than that."

How seriously he takes that concept, she already knows. It had probably been about the only thing to have kept him from killing Tom on sight once she'd promoted him to helmsman. Given what she knows of him, this is something she can understand – and it's more of a relief than it has any right to be.

"I had to forget my loyalty to the Maquis once we joined Voyager," he tries to explain grimly. "Out there, I gave my loyalty to you. Only you."

"For your people," she whispers. That's the element she has always forgotten. That one key fact. Her arm trembles with the isometric position, but she isn't quite ready to relinquish her aim. Not yet.

"At first, maybe. You know it was more than that very quickly."

"I thought I did."

"You _did_ know," he corrects, forcing eye contact she fights not to shy away from. When she doesn't contradict him again, he continues. "But it wasn't easy. I was always aware that by joining you, I was turning my back on the Maquis back here at home. I never forgot that I owed them my life. I couldn't forget it. When we came back, I couldn't turn my back on that debt once I had the power to do something about it. I had to set them free."

She nods, full understanding lifting a heavy weight she's carried for almost two years now. "One betrayal can be forgiven. Not two," she says softly.

He stares at her, drinking her in. Turning over her words takes longer when thirsty eyes are so openly trying to quench that thirst, but it penetrates eventually. He's able to nod slowly. "I guess that's a pretty accurate summation."

"I did," she admits with a grimace. "I betrayed you. In theory, I would have. I would have taken you into custody a year ago – I would have turned you in without a second thought. I would have denied you your freedom."

"I know." His head bows somber acknowledgment. "I understood, Kathryn," he tells her.

"You shouldn't have." Her head shakes sharply. "You shouldn't have been able to forgive that."

"It's not a question of forgiveness. I knew I had to go back eventually and face up to what I did. I thought about giving myself up then…but that would have deprived you of the pleasure of finding me and hauling me in." His full smile hurts to look at. The crinkling of his eyes, more than winking dimples, is what kills her. It breaks her heart.

"It would never have been a pleasure, Chakotay," she whispers, swallowing suspiciously loudly against an odd ache in her throat. "Not by any means."

"Are you sure about that?" he teases. "You do like to win."

"In games, maybe. This is no game."

"No, Kathryn. We were never that." He blinks. A soft, slow blink of a thousand different warring pains. "I'm sorry Kathryn. I never wanted to hurt you."

She says nothing, and he sits back, giving her the time he knows she needs. His eyes keep passing over her, a little surprised at what they find. Her attire. Her open posture. It's incongruent to what she's surely come here to do, and he won't let himself be fooled into thinking there's any other reason she has come. He doesn't want to experience the sensation of having his guts ripped out of him whole and shredded in front of him. Not again. He dealt with that a few times over the course of nine years, and he's learned not to even put himself in that position.

He holds out his unarmed hands to her as he rises slowly, wrists together. "I'm ready to go now. Take me in. But I won't give up the others."

He actually draws the laughter out of her. Even in these circumstances. "If you did, I'd have to seriously question your identity."

He smiles again, waiting patiently. When she makes no move to approach him, the smile melts into confusion. Hope – and fear. "Kathryn," he says sternly, cutting into the silence of inactivity. "What are you waiting for? This isn't going to get any easier for either one of us."

Incredulously, he watches her phaser slowly lower to her side. She shakes her head. "You're a good man, Chakotay." Unexpectedly, she smirks. "You have questionable judgment, sometimes, that much is true. But taking you back just to rot in some cell for years isn't justice. I won't do it. It wouldn't be right."

Right doesn't always have bearing on Starfleet policy. It's been his problem with them all along. But that doesn't mean he can let her do this. Not for him. Not this time. "Kathryn, you have to. If you don't, they'll never trust you again."

"They already don't. And if earning their trust is something I still have to do after decades of service, maybe I'm not interested in having it." Her shoulders set back without her consciously noticing, but he sees it. He sees her absolute conviction as she announces, "I'm not going back to Earth, Chakotay. I was a Starfleet officer for long enough. At heart I'm an explorer, and there's nothing left for me to explore in Starfleet."

Starfleet is her life. It's her identity. She can't mean this.

"Think about this. Really think about what you're doing," he begs.

She swallows. "Can you forgive me?" She isn't entirely sure that he can. That she could, in reverse.

Sagging, Chakotay sees that she isn't going to be swayed on this. She won't take him. "It was never a question of forgiveness," he tells her sadly. "You did what you felt was right, Kathryn."

"And so did you."

He approaches slowly, still cautious. She makes no move to back away from his approach, encouraging his hand to lift, to wipe at the line of moisture under her left eye. Softly, he tells her, "You know I never thought that admiral rank bar looked right on you."

This might really be happening. She may be here with him. She may really have no intention of leaving him.

She laughs through her leaking tears. "The captain's pips didn't seem to fit you, either. Contrary to what I'd told myself all those years."

"The uniform always looked good on you. Too good. The pips, too." His fingertips dance a forbidden path down her neck to her collar, which he rims. "But I can't deny the leather looks better."

"It feels good." She marvels at that now. It's not the uniform she was born and bred to fit in but, "Leather feels right, somehow."

So does his body pressing up against the front of hers. Dear God, it's the first right thing in her life since the moment he walked out of it.

Since the moment two other people had drowned out of it, if she's honest.

This is right.

The fighter ship floor is hard but they never feel its bite until afterward, when they lie in a pile of sweat-dampened clothes, raw and sore and completed in ways neither one has been in years. Two years, in fact. With his remaining strength, he flips their positions, smoothing her back over the side of the floor atop their discarded clothing. He pushes the damp hair out of her flushed face, bracing his weight on one folded arm. What reflects back to him in her eyes stops his heart.

"Are you really here to stay?" He needs to hear it before he can dare to believe it.

She shakes her head. "We can't go back. There's nothing for us there. Not anymore."

Us. That's yes. It's everything. She is everything. But it's not without sacrifice on her part, he knows. "Your family?" he asks, knowing how much she loves her mother and sister.

"Want me to be happy. There's no happiness left for me in Starfleet. Or on Earth for that matter." Her fingers trail over his chest, reveling in the smooth outline of muscle that's harder than what she remembers of it. "I think they knew that well before I did."

He drops his head. "I'm sorry. That's my fault."

"Don't," she orders. "It isn't."

"The crew?"

"Don't need me." It hurts to admit, but it's true.

"Seven does."

"Somehow I'm not so sure of that anymore. She's grown, Chakotay. In ways we never expected, maybe. It's occurred to me that she doesn't have to choose my path to complete her journey. But we'll make sure she knows how to contact us whenever she needs to. We did devise encryptions no one in Starfleet could crack if they wanted to, if you'll recall."

"You've thought this through." It's taking time to fully penetrate; that's not strictly his fault and she knows it.

"Of course."

"You knew you would be able to live with the answers to your questions? About what I'd done, and why? You were that sure?"

"I know you. It was enough."

She is enough. They are enough.

"You know, we really don't have any idea if we can actually live together long term. What if we start fighting over the towels again?"

"You're a slob, yes, but I already know that," she says, unconcerned.

"And you're more of one than you'll ever admit to being – which was my whole argument all along."

"Voyager wasn't that big. If we didn't kill each other in seven years of working together, we'll manage outside of a command structure. And this had better work. Because I meant what I said. We really can't go back. It'll take years for those warrants to expire."

"Will they? Expire?"

"For me? Within three years. All I did was steal a shuttle and desert in peace time. But you?" She winces. "In about a decade."

"At least neither of us has murdered anyone…that I know of," he quips.

She quirks a brow. "Your faith in me is inspiring."

His faith in her is borderline delusional and always has been. She marvels at how he can still do that after all the flaws he's seen in her. Some of them were fairly ugly.

"Are you sure you can do this?" He still isn't sold on her commitment. "Walk away from Starfleet? I don't want to be the reason you make that decision, Kathryn."

Her hand on his chest is grounding. It always has been. "You aren't," she soothes. "If anything, you were the catalyst, but it's not the same. The Federation has changed. It's not where I want to spend the rest of my life and it's not the work I want to be doing. They're not _who_ I want to spend it with."

"And Earth?"

"We'll go back. Eventually."

"Where to, then? I think I've seen enough of Alpha and Delta to last a lifetime."

"I'd say we've got the best of both those other quadrants right here," she agrees.

"The Gamma Quadrant?" he tosses out for consideration.

"Maybe. We'll find a place, if we decide to settle. Somewhere out of the way, maybe with people we can help. Truly help." Two fingers leave his flexing arm to signal an important interjection. "But I have one absolutely non-negotiable condition, wherever we go," she warns.

"Name it," he says. He will give her anything. Everything.

"It has to be somewhere without fog."


End file.
